


whenever you want to begin

by defcontwo



Series: millions of years yet to come [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 2012-2013 NHL Lockout, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Jack Zimmermann, Getting Back Together, Idiot Teens Get Married, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:07:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24098569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: That’s the part that bothers him the most, years and years later. That he doesn’t even have a fucking photo of the day he got married. He has a photo of himself, at the draft, three hours before he overdosed on ativan, but he doesn’t have a photo ofthat. If he didn’t have the yellowed, faded copy of their marriage certificate to prove it, Jack could’ve chalked the whole thing up to some sort of benzo-induced hallucination.But that’s kind of Jack’s life in a nutshell, though. The good parts get forgotten, while the bad parts make the evening news.
Relationships: Kent "Parse" Parson/Jack Zimmermann
Series: millions of years yet to come [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1761844
Comments: 75
Kudos: 213





	whenever you want to begin

**Author's Note:**

> what up, nerds. long time, no hockey comic. so! this is a story that I've had on the back burner for like, four years, and I just couldn't figure out how to thread it all together but in the year 2020, in our time of quarantine, I somehow finally sat down and made it happen. 
> 
> thank you so so much to my good pal C for your cheerleading and beta work, and thanks to the discord, for all that you do. 
> 
> title is from Fiona Apple's "I Want You to Love Me."

It is the year 2012, and all Jack can see is the curve of Kent’s lips as he tosses out a joke, pressing up tight against Jack on an empty train in an unfamiliar city, like it's their own private world. Jack blinks and he can still see the overlay, like a gauzy screen laid over an old portrait. He closes his eyes and he pictures the way they used to be, shoved up close together in the backseat of Kent’s shitty Toyota after practice, with Kent in his lap, shivering cold from the sweat dried on the back of his neck, and neither of them caring a shit about anything but what was right there between them. 

Another life, another world. 

It is the year 2012, but it could be 2007, 2008, 2009, it could be any year at all and still, all Jack would see is Kent.

.

It's easy, with Camilla.

She likes sports and she's not all that interested in anything serious, not when she has trophies to win and Olympic scouts to impress. 

It's easy, when she kisses him in the Haus kitchen at a party, after he's had three or four beers that he's not supposed to have, to be this guy. To be the guy who plays hockey and hangs with his friends and picks up girls like it's no big deal. To be the guy that he was supposed to be, in another life, the guy who goes first in the draft, or second in the draft, and doesn’t care either way, because he’s making millions and he’s scoring goals, and he doesn’t have to worry about a single fucking thing. 

Jack’s been around that guy his whole life; faking it is second nature. 

And Camilla -- Camilla is pretty and blonde and she has a smattering of freckles across her nose, and she's patient, even when Jack has no idea what the fuck he's doing when he goes down on her. Probably because she assumes that he's about as clueless as any straight guy would be. 

Jack wakes up in her twin xl bed three hours later with half of his body hanging off the side onto the floor, and it's easy, it's easy, it's easy, right up until he remembers, with sudden, nauseating clarity that she's the first person he's slept with since Kent. 

Jack throws his arm over his eyes, and draws in a sharp breath, in and out. 

Jack thinks a lot of shitty things about himself. Some of them are fair; some of them are like a snake whispering into his ear, half truths and dirty lies, the ever present specter of anxiety. 

Still. He never thought he'd be the kind of guy to cheat.

.

Jack was a little drunk, when he thought of it. A little high too, probably, because he usually was, back in those days.

But he was dead sober when they hopped into Kent’s truck and drove the two and a half hours south across the border into Maine, which had only just made this legal, anyways. They finally pull up to a tiny town of about eight-hundred people called St. Agatha, where no one would recognize them like they would in Canada, and it would probably be another decade, at least, until the public records got digitized. They got lucky; the county clerk was just bored enough not to look at either of them too closely. 

It was about as smart as they could be, doing something that stupid. 

It didn’t feel that stupid, though. Not at the time -- not with Kent looking up at him through his dumb messy hair, looking small and young and uncharacteristically awed, and wearing one of Jack’s old sweatshirts, as he placed a ring made of stick tape on Jack’s finger. 

A month later, Jack overdoses. 

Seven months later, Maine repeals same-sex marriage, and Jack reads about it in rehab and thinks, well, that just fucking figures. 

He loses the ring, anyways. It was in the pocket of his suit trousers at the draft; he knows because he kept sticking his hand in his pocket and smoothing his fingers over the worn-down tape. It wasn’t with his things, afterwards, and no one at the hospital could figure out what he was talking about, when he asked. 

They must’ve thrown it away. They must’ve thought it was nothing. Just a piece of garbage that fell out of his pocket and onto the floor when they were in the middle of pumping his stomach. 

Halfway through his freshman year at Samwell, Maine reinstates same-sex marriage, and Jack only hears about it because he overhears some guys talking about it behind him in a lecture. He starts, and looks around guiltily, as if anyone can read the truth of what he’s thinking on his face. 

It’s been three years, since that day. They don’t live in the same city; they barely talk and when they do, they fight. 

Jack wonders if it even counts, anymore.

.

It counts.

Of course it fucking counts.

.

“Yo, Zimmermann, you hear anything from Parson about how he’s liking Berlin?”

Jack inhales sharply, and very nearly stumbles over his own skates. 

Shitty chirps him lightly, and the seniors laugh, a little, but under the watchful eyes of the coaches, none of it comes out quite as cruel as it used to. 

So, sophomore year is better than freshman year. 

It’s a pretty low bar, but Jack’s getting good at this, at the art of adjusting his expectations. He likes to imagine it like a scale, sometimes. 

One to the right, and he gets a little better at coping. One to the left, and he’s got another fucking thing to worry about. It feels like he’s never going to get even. 

It’d be a lie to say that it was easier with Kent by his side, because it wasn’t, obviously. Jack still fucked it up, anyways. But he slept a little easier, on those nights when Kent would crawl through the window and cram himself into the twin-size bed in Jack’s billet, one arm thrown across Jack’s chest like an anchor holding him in place. 

An entire ocean lies between them right now, and still, Jack can feel the ghost of Kent’s fingertips, is still expecting to see Kent skating right up to him out of the corner of his eye, just like he always did in the middle of practice, for a hand at Jack’s elbow or an arm slung around Jack’s shoulders, any excuse to reach out and touch. 

Shitty doles out one-armed hugs and Holster, one of their frogs, is really into fist bumps. 

It’s not the same. 

Jack shakes his head, and drops his shoulders. He doesn’t have time to think about Kent right now. 

“We don’t have a lockout going on here at Samwell,” Jack barks out. “So shut up and get back to work.”

.

By the end of the last lecture on Tuesday, the Haus is empty, and there’s a stillness in the air that Jack’s always craved but never really believed was possible, not in this house. He _should_ be on a plane to Montreal right now but Maman had a charity engagement that she couldn’t get out of. His parents flew down last month for a game, and they all made a point of eating turkey at a five star restaurant and for this year, decided to call it good enough.

And it was good -- it was a good night, Samwell won 3-2 in OT; Jack netted the winner and it was easy, then, to let the warmth of solid food and his parents’ affection lull him into relaxation, to let his brain take a break, for once. 

It’s fine, anyways. Jack’s spent a lot of time away from home for the holidays, in Juniors and during rehab. He’s pretty used to it, by now. It’s just another day on the calendar. 

Except around this time, four years ago, Kent was climbing through the window at Jack’s billet, like he did so many times before that it might as well have had his name on it, with two turkey sandwiches in one hand, and a can of cranberry sauce that his mother had sent him in the other. 

They’d budged up close to each other under the blankets on Jack’s bed, legs tangled and Kent’s arm tucked under Jack’s shoulders. Kent kept using the jar of maple syrup that was smuggled up the trellis and through the window in his backpack as an excuse to keep cracking Canadian jokes, like Jack wouldn’t see right through it and catch the sad, bitter twist to his lips whenever he mentioned his family, so many thousands of miles away. 

“How do I know you won’t put maple syrup on your turkey sandwich?” Kent had asked, sticking his tongue out at Jack, “you Canadians are a weird people,” and in retaliation, Jack had pulled his hoodie down over his head, making his cowlick stick up even more than usual. 

Eighteen years old, squawking and flushed, with cranberry sauce stuck to the corner of his mouth as he elbowed Jack in the stomach. Jack wishes he could draw, wishes he could go back in time and take a photo of that moment, because for all that that’s the Kent that Jack sees when he closes his eyes at night, it’s not enough. 

Jack sits down at his desk, picks up his phone, and starts making calls. 

Twenty minutes later, he’s out the door.

.

They didn’t take any photos, the day they got married. Kent’s piece of shit Nokia didn’t have a camera, and Jack was always letting his battery die, back then, because half the time, he forgot about his phone altogether.

The people at the courthouse didn’t know them; no one offered, and anyways, Jack probably wouldn’t have accepted if they did. It would’ve felt like too much of a risk. 

They got back into Kent’s truck after the ceremony, and they drove all the way back to Rimouski, and they spent their wedding night in the twin bed in Jack’s billet, just like they’d spent every other night for months. 

That’s the part that bothers him the most, years and years later. That he doesn’t even have a fucking photo of the day he got married. He has a photo of himself, at the draft, three hours before he overdosed on ativan, but he doesn’t have a photo of _that_. If he didn’t have the yellowed, faded copy of their marriage certificate to prove it, Jack could’ve chalked the whole thing up to some sort of benzo-induced hallucination. 

But that’s kind of Jack’s life in a nutshell, though. The good parts get forgotten, while the bad parts make the evening news.

.

It’s the day before American Thanksgiving, and Jack’s done a very stupid thing.

The Berlin autumn wind runs right through him, and there’s a bite to the air that’s different to every other cold he’s ever known, sharp and clean and nothing at all like Boston, like Montreal, like Rimouski. The Mercedes-Benz Arena looms high above him, a modern day monolisk surrounded on all sides by blank space and cluttered industrial warehouses. 

Eisbären Berlin should be getting out of practice soon, or so says their website that Jack hastily checked before grabbing his duffel and making a beeline for Logan Airport, but he’s worn grey and tired around the edges now, and when he blinks his eyes, trying to picture the dark blue font on the team website, he’s suddenly so sure that he must’ve gotten the timing all wrong. 

Except, the front doors open and twenty-odd guys come streaming right out and there’s not a single inch of Jack that’s not buzzing all over, torn between two impulses: run right forward or as far away as possible. 

Because there, milling around with this strange contract negotiations war-time bedfellows mix of DHL and NHL stars, is Kent. 

Shorter than the rest by at least three or four inches, and all bundled up in a pea coat that’s about ten times sharper than anything he ever used to wear in Rimouski, with a bright red beanie pulled down over his ears, his cowlick sticking out the front and flopping down in front of his eyes. Jack’s heart feels like it drops straight down his stomach, creating a heavy weight. 

“Jack?” Kent says, stopping still in the pathway and stepping aside, letting the rest of his team move on without him. One second, his eyes are wide with shock, adding to the flush high in his cheeks from the cold, and in the next second, everything in his expression has gone blank, the very picture of Kent Parson, NHL Interview Personality. But Jack doesn’t miss the way Kent swallows hard, or the way he squares his shoulders, like he’s bracing for a fight. “What the fuck?” 

“Hey,” Jack starts, shoving his hands into the pocket of his parka. “Uh, maybe I should’ve called first.” 

Kent opens his mouth, and then snaps it shut just as fast, turning his face upwards towards the sky. “Maybe I should’ve called first, he says,” Kent mutters. “This is so typical of you, Zimms, you know that, right?” 

Jack cracks a tremulous grin. “Yeah, it really is. Can we, uh, get out of the cold? I’ve been freezing my ass off out here for the past hour.” 

Kent lets out a small puff of a laugh. “Well, we wouldn’t want that. Best ass in the business, huh?” 

“Shut up,” Jack mutters, but there’s no malice to it. 

The thing is, Jack definitely should’ve called first. Should’ve called first because the last time they saw each other -- the last time they saw each other, Kent had just won a Stanley Cup, and Jack could hardly bear the sight of him. 

Jack can still taste the nasty words he’d said in the back of his throat, and he winces at the reminder. He can’t think of another time they’d ever been so cruel to each other, not even during the early days of the Q, back when they couldn’t fucking stand each other. Their adolescent competitive streak never bred anything quite that raw and personal and ugly. 

The thing is, if Jack had called, he never would’ve gotten on that plane in the first place. 

Some of that must show on Jack’s face because Kent lets it go, rolling his eyes as he hip checks Jack lightly, pushing him in the direction of the nearest tram line. 

“Come on, dumbass. You look like you need a nap,” Kent says. 

They maintain a careful distance for the short trip to Kent’s apartment, but it doesn’t matter because Jack feels all warmed up from every point of that brief contact, all too aware of the places where Kent’s elbows keep knocking into his. 

Jack closes his eyes against the biting wind, and can’t decide if he’s going to regret this just yet. 

They ride the tram a couple of stops to Kent’s temporary apartment, a two-bedroom with high ceilings and old wood floors that creak when Jack puts weight down on them, like they’ve been sitting there for over a hundred years which probably, they have.

Still, for all that Kent’s only been here for a few months and could wind up on a plane home any day now, there’s little pieces of him littered everywhere. There’s a photo of Kent’s family stuck to the tiny fridge, an Aces snapback on the coat rack, and a giant print photograph of the Welcome to Las Vegas sign over the kitchen table. A crate of beer bottles sits in the corner by the sink. 

“Nice place,” Jack says. Kent glances at him askance, like he can’t tell if Jack’s making fun of him or not. 

“It’ll do, for now,” Kent says, toeing off his boots. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice apartment and all, but I’d still rather be back on a plane to Vegas tomorrow if I could.” 

“I….uh, I was surprised that you decided to come out here,” Jack admits. “I thought you’d want to stick around. Be around the talks, and all that.” 

“Do I detect a tone of judgement, there, Zimms?” Kent says, rocking forward on the balls of his heels. 

He wasn’t, actually, or -- or maybe he was, a bit, because it’s impossible for Jack to look at what’s happening and not imagine what he would’ve done differently if, well. If he had gone first in the draft, all those years ago. If he was standing in Kent’s shoes, right now, if he was Captain of the Las Vegas Aces. And now that Kent’s said it, though, now that he’s got that face on, the one that says he’s spoiling for a fight, well, Jack can’t help but oblige him. 

“You _are_ the captain,” Jack points out. 

But Kent doesn’t rise to the bait; he deflates, rocking backwards, and letting out a huff. “Yeah, well. I thought about it. But….I needed a fucking break, Zimms.” 

Jack feels his eyebrows furrow. He has no fucking clue what that’s supposed to mean. “A break from what? You know, you _are_ playing hockey here.” 

“Yeah, you’d think so, right?” Kent says. “I haven’t made anyone’s nose bleed in months, and I’m getting real fucking cranky about it.” Kent shakes himself, cracking his neck, and very much avoiding Jack’s gaze. “Alright, come on, I’ll get you a towel. You probably want to wash the plane off you, right?” 

“Yeah, okay,” Jack says, feeling thrown, like he’s just been caught wrong-footed. He can’t help but think that he’s just missed something important, here, but whatever it was, the moment’s gone, and Kent’s carefully blank expression gives away nothing. 

But Kent was right: the shower was needed. Jack turns the temperature to the highest it will go, and lets the scalding hot water beat down onto his back, raising a hand to rub at the knots that anxiety and a ten hour plane ride settled deep into the set of his shoulders. The bathroom shelf is riddled with expensive looking shower products, but for just a second, Jack tells himself that when he reaches out and pops open the heavy black bottle, it will smell just like the drug store Old Spice that Kent used to use. 

It doesn’t. Jack laughs at himself, and tries to pretend that a sudden, inexplicable grief isn’t fighting to claw its way out of his chest. God, if only they were eighteen again. 

The urge to linger in the shower dissipates instantly, so Jack shuts it off, reaching for the over-sized thick grey towel that Kent shoved at him, toweling off his hair quickly before securing the towel around his waist and wandering back down the hallway into the kitchen where he left his duffel. 

Kent’s sitting at his kitchen table, one boot propped up on a seat, with a couple of plastic bags and some rolling papers sitting in front of him, and Jack does a double take. 

“Since when do _you_ smoke weed?” Jack says, and yeah, this time the judgement was intentional, for all that it’s pretty fucking hypocritical coming from a guy who had to go to rehab for his ativan habit. 

Kent’s very purposeful eyebrow raise says as much, as he just holds up the plastic bag wordlessly, and Jack can see easily now that all it’s full of is tobacco. 

“Everyone rolls their own cigarettes around here,” Kent says around the filter that he’s got stuck between his lips. “When in Rome, you know.” 

Jack scoffs, if only to be an asshole. Because he can. “You can’t possibly still have that habit.” 

Jack’s, well. He’s a real piece of work, he knows that about himself. And for all that there’s a low, buzzing tension running between him and Kent that holds more hostility than it does affection, there’s something comforting in being around Kent, now. Here, he doesn’t have to worry about eyes on him at all times, expecting him to be something, anything that he’s not. He doesn’t have a whole team looking to him, waiting to see him fall or rise. 

Kent knows him; knows the very worst of him, right down to his bones, and still finds it in himself to curl something special and fond and just for them into the exasperated glare that he sends Jack’s way. “Nah. I mean, maybe once in a blue moon during the offseason - but everyone else does, so you know, feels polite to be prepared.” 

Kent’s eyes flick up and down Jack’s body with purpose, lingering slightly on the point where the edge of the towel meets Jack’s hipbone, and Jack can’t pretend that he didn’t do this on purpose. He could’ve just as easily brought his duffel into the bathroom with him. 

It’s fun, riling Kent up, but it’s not like Kent doesn’t dish it right back and then some. 

Kent clears his throat, and meets Jack’s gaze. “Get some rest, Zimms. I promised a bunch of my buddies that I’d go out with them tonight.” 

“Out? With who?” Jack shifts back and forth, suddenly nervous. He knows Giroux and Briere are in Berlin, too, he recognized their faces in the streaming crowd of hockey players leaving the arena earlier. The last thing he wants to do is spend a night out on the town with a bunch of NHL players. 

Kent waves a hand. “Just some German students who live in my building. They think it’s funny, you know? They’ve never heard of me. It’s a novelty, hanging out with an American NHL star, because they don’t know shit about hockey or shit about me.” 

Jack eases up, lets some of the tension leak from his shoulders. “Yeah, okay. I’ll just, uh. Guest room?” 

Kent looks down at the table, fiddling with a rolling paper with one hand. The tips of his ears are turning bright red, a familiar smirk playing around the edges of his mouth. “I never bought sheets for the guest bed or anything, uh. Just take mine, I’ll be bouncing around anyways. Post-practice adrenaline, you know how it goes. I’ll do some laundry, or whatever.” 

And that’s, well. Jack’s not under any delusions here; he didn’t exactly expect to be sleeping in the guest room, but there’s a difference between expectations and reality, and knowing it, in the here and now, gets Jack’s brain going in all sorts of directions that aren’t exactly productive for the sleep he so sorely needs. 

But Jack trucks into Kent’s bedroom anyways, collapsing heavily into the soft mattress. There’s a faint scent of Kent’s soap in the air, and Jack can’t tell if it’s coming from himself or the sheets. He decides he doesn’t care; both are inevitable. 

Jack’s head drops into the pillow, and in the next second, passes right out.

.

He slips out of Camilla’s dorm room in the middle of the night, hastily pulling on his jeans in the dark and reaching for what he hopes is his t-shirt off the floor. The yellow fluorescent light of the dorm hallway flickers down at him as he tugs his Samwell Hockey t-shirt all the way down with one hand, checking for his student ID with the other.

Down the hall, another girl comes back from the bathrooms in slippers and a pink, fluffy robe, carrying her phone, a toothbrush, and a nasty look just for him. It’s not a cool thing to do, taking off without saying goodbye. Or at least girls don’t think so, anyways. 

Some of the upperclassmen on the team might give him a high five for it, and just the thought leaves a roiling in his stomach. 

Jack gives the girl a weak smile before she lets herself into her room, and then starts walking along the narrow hallway, gaze staring unseeing down at the stained, geometric patterned carpet. 

He rubs idly at the knuckle of his ring finger and tells himself not to wonder what that girl would think of him if she knew the truth.

.

Jack blinks himself awake in a dark room, on unfamiliar sheets, smelling like a soap that he doesn’t recognize at first. It takes him a second, before it all comes rushing back.

He’s in Kent’s bed, in Kent’s apartment, in Berlin. 

Three weeks ago, he slept with Camilla. Six months ago, Kent showed up to the Haus, unshaven and sporting a shiner along his jawline, but all Jack could see was silver and nickel. The Stanley Cup loomed like a crown on Kent’s head, bright and shining, and nothing else mattered. All Jack could do was close his eyes real tight and picture the trophy that he so desperately wants to earn, that Kent just got to hoist, that Jack doesn’t know if he’ll ever get to touch as a player. 

Jack has divorce papers stuffed under the mattress in his room at his parent’s house. A family friend drew them up not long after Jack got out of rehab, all while Jack tried not to see the disappointment in his mother’s gaze, the tight wrinkles in the corner of his father’s frown. 

He told his parents that he signed them. Told them that he mailed them out to Kent, that it was all over and done with. 

But he hasn’t, of course. Every time he pulls them out to stare at them, he sees Kent in the hospital after. Kent, pale as death, and clad all in black like a funeral. It had taken Jack a minute to realize that he wasn’t dead, that it was an Aces black sweater that dwarfed Kent’s frame. 

“Guess you got what you wanted, huh,” he’d said, and Kent’s face had gone from pale white to stained red. “Go fuck yourself, Zimmermann,” Kent had said, digging something out from his suit pockets and throwing it at Jack’s face. “Go straight to fucking hell, Zimms.” 

It was Kent’s ring of stick tape. The one that he’d worn on a string around his neck ever since their wedding day. The string was fraying at the edges from too many showers and days spent in the lake over the summer. 

Jack had torn it up and stuffed it in a napkin to be thrown away with his tray of lunch. “I guess that’s that,” he’d thought. 

He’d regretted throwing out that ratty piece of stick tape from the second that the nurse picked up his tray and there’s part of him that’s still stuck in that moment, still eighteen and nauseous from withdrawal, trying to figure out if there’s any part of the wreckage of his life that’s worth keeping. 

So here he is, now. Three years later and all he has to go by is the deep lurch in his gut that tugs and pulls like a fish hook every time he thinks about signing those papers. 

There’s a dip in the bed, a sinking weight as Kent sits at the foot of it. “Hey Zimms, you awake?” 

In the dark, Kent is just a hazy shape, a flash of white teeth and blonde hair. Jack presses the palm of his hands into the sheets to keep himself from reaching out for him. “Yeah, I’m awake. What time is it anyways?” 

“Just after 1 AM, old man,” Kent says, slapping at the heel of Jack’s foot under the blankets. “Time to get moving.” 

Jack frowns, before he remembers that Kent probably can’t see him. “Isn’t it, uh, a little late for going out?”

Kent laughs, his smile another slice of bright in the dim. “Not in this town, dude. ‘Round here, the average party goes from 2 in the morning til the sun goes up. Now c’mon, make yourself pretty. Don’t wear a fucking polo shirt, alright?” 

Jack grimaces. He only brought two shirts and one of them _is_ a polo shirt, but he shrugs on the plain black tee with a fresh pair of jeans, and hopes that that’s good enough. From the way Kent’s eyebrow raises when Jack ducks back into the living room, his lips thinning out a smile, Jack’s guessing that it’s not, but Jack didn’t fly ten hours to get mocked for his fashion sense by his estranged husband. 

Kent makes a soft clucking sound with his tongue. “You’re lucky you’re hot, Zimms.” 

Jack half rolls his eyes but freezes halfway through the movement once he actually takes the time to stop and look at Kent, really look at him, for the first time since he woke up. His hair is as short as it’s ever been but it still doesn’t do his unruly cowlick any good, so he’s jammed that same red beanie from earlier on over it. He must’ve gotten dressed while Jack was still sleeping, shucking on tight black jeans with a deep white v-neck that shows off the birthmark just below his right collarbone. 

He looks like a fucking hipster, just like the guys in Shitty’s gender studies courses that he’s always making fun of, but that doesn’t do anything to change the way the back of Jack’s throat suddenly goes dry. 

“You, uh. You look good, Parse,” Jack says, before he can think better of it. 

Kent just rolls his eyes, reaching for a quilted bomber jacket that’s hanging off the back of a kitchen chair. “Good to know that even if I can’t get you to return my calls, I can still manage to give you a boner.” 

“Kenny…” Jack starts, but then he clams up because he doesn’t know what to say to that. He used to be fluent in Kent, he thinks, but so much of Kent’s teenage vulnerabilities have been papered over with something else, something new, and he can’t tell if Kent’s being serious or not. 

And Kent doesn’t give him the opportunity to figure it out. He just throws Jack’s parka at him and then swings open his front door. “C’mon, Zimms, I wanna dance and have a drink,” Kent tosses over his shoulder with a small smirk, like a dare, like he knows there’s nothing that Jack would rather be doing less and that, at least, feels familiar. 

But Jack is the one who showed up without a word or a plan. This time, he’s the one with more x’s than o’s in his hurt column. Taking the dare is probably the least he can do. 

So, he follows Kent down the stairs and out into the bleak, cold winter air, where they meet Kent’s friends at the corner of Boxhagener Platz. They’re a somewhat rag-tag group in their mid-to-late twenties and Jack’s already forgotten their names the second that they’ve introduced themselves, but there’s no light of recognition when Kent introduces him, no sign that the name Zimmermann means anything at all to them. They accept his rejection of a proffered beer with a casual shrug and then hand it off to Kent instead. They’re just here to drink beers and go dancing with their weird new American friend; they don’t give a fuck about the 2009 NHL Entry Draft. 

Jack blows out a breath that he didn’t even realize he was holding, and then startles when Kent nudges him in the ribs, eyeing him with a pointed look, like he’s saying _see what I mean?_

Jack nudges back, as he huffs out a small laugh. He’s glad that he did this, even if he hasn’t exactly figured out what _this_ is yet. 

Light from a lamppost reflects down on Kent’s hair, showing off the freckles that haven’t yet faded in the cool Berlin winter, highlighting the line of his neck down to his collarbone as he throws his head back in laughter when one of his friends tries and fails to open a beer without an opener. 

Jack’s hand reaches up before he knows that he’s doing it, the instinct to reach out and touch taking over as he presses his fingertips to the side of Kent’s jaw until Kent squirms and bats his hand away, complaining about frozen hands and how Jack should’ve brought gloves. 

But then Kent ducks his head, the curl of his lips ticking upwards in a true smile, the one that Jack recognizes, and Jack presses his eyes closed for just a second, sees a small courthouse in a strange town and that same smile, a little awed and a little shy, as Jack’s mouth forms the words _to love and to cherish, till death do us part_. 

Only Jack’s not dead. He was, for about ten seconds in an ambulance, and then he wasn’t. But he’s treated every second that came afterwards like a slate wiped clean, a new life to be lived in penance for the last one. 

There’s a lot that he regrets, from before. He threw marrying Kent into that box and then taped it up and shoved it under his childhood bed, along with the divorce papers that he’s never signed. 

It should’ve been obvious, what that meant. It feels obvious now and Jack can’t help the brief wave of contempt, the embarrassment that moves through him because it’s so fucking stupid, how little he understands his own heart. 

Maybe if he gets lucky, Kent will give him another chance to figure it out. 

Jack’s shaken out of his thoughts by another nudge to his side, Kent’s elbow jamming lightly into him. “Earth to Planet Zimms, you with me?” 

Kent’s got the bottle of beer held loosely in one hand; from this angle, Jack can see how impossibly long his eyelashes are, the way they collect condensation from the air. Jack’s heart stutters in his chest, equal parts thrilled and terrified by the possibilities that lay ahead of them. 

He leans over, shoving at Kent’s beanie so that it falls backwards on his head, releasing his cowlick into one curly, staticky mess at the top of his forehead as Kent squawks and tries to duck away at the same time. 

“What the fuck, Zimms,” Kent complains, taking his beanie off to run a hand through his hair before jamming the hat back on. 

“So much for your situational awareness, eh?” Jack chirps, a laugh bubbling out of him when he’s rewarded for his efforts by Kent flipping him off. 

“I’m abandoning you in a dark corner at Berghain,” Kent mutters, but there’s no bite to it. “See how good _your_ situational awareness is then, you fucker.” 

“Is this how Americans flirt?” The only guy in the group calls back at them. Sebastian, Jack thinks, as panic starts to unspool in the center of his chest. The one in the olive green army jacket is Sebastian. “This explains a lot about how fucked up you are.” 

“Hey now, Seb,” Kent protests, kicking out with his boots to catch Sebastian lightly in the back of the calf. “Say that to me again after we kick your ass at the Olympics, man.” 

One of the girls lets out a snort, sending a conspiratorial glance in Sebastian’s direction. “Listen to them. Like we care about Olympics hockey. Talk to me when your football team figures out how to get past the group stages in the World Cup, yeah?” 

Another girl with closely cropped hair who reminds him a little of that girl Larissa that Shitty’s always hanging out with joins in. “Honestly, Anna, who needs strategy in football when they can just send bullshit long balls down the field, though, right?”

The first girl, Anna, just takes a sip of her beer and makes a soft humming noise of agreement. She’s holding hands with the other girl, Jack realizes with a start. Probably, they have been for the entire walk over, and he feels a little less exposed, a little less obvious for knowing it. 

“I’m Canadian,” Jack says, after a pause. “So, I’m staying out of it. Unless you want to add me to the making fun of America game, in which case, by all means.” 

“You were born in Pittsburgh, you little shit,” Kent protests, gesturing wildly with his arm and sloshing some of his beer out onto the pavement. “I’m telling your mom on you for that.” 

“Did you know that Kent was born on the Fourth of July?” Jack asks conversationally. “American Independence Day. Fireworks and all.” 

Anna lets out a cackle, her messy blonde ponytail shaking with the motion of it. “With that blonde hair and baby blues? _Jesus Christ_ ,” she says, in a faux, put-upon Southern accent. 

_Kent’s eyes aren’t blue, not always,_ Jack thinks, but doesn’t say, because even he knows that letting a bunch of strangers know how much attention he pays to the color of Kent’s eyes is a little too much. 

“That was literally the worst accent I’ve ever heard,” Kent says. “Why am I friends with any of you people?” 

“We buy you beer,” Anna tosses back, “plus Seb always gets us into Berghain ‘cause he blew the bouncer once.” 

“She’s right,” Kent confirms, turning to Jack like this is a secret just between them, like it hasn’t been three years since they used to swap secrets like this. “They do buy me beer. And I don’t think that blowjob is gonna get these losers through the door for much longer, so we might as well take advantage of it.” 

“Fuck you, that was the best blowjob of that man’s life!” Seb yells, a little too loudly as they start to get in line in front of a large old building that must’ve been about a thousand other things before it was a nightclub. Jack makes a mental note to look it up later; there’s a lot of history in Berlin. It’d be nice to come back later, to stay for longer. 

Jack eyes the long line of people with skepticism. “How long do people wait for this?” 

“Oh, hours and hours,” Kent says, a little flippantly. “It’s an honor to get kicked to the curb from this place.” 

Jack makes a face but doesn’t say anything. Kent looks at him for a beat and then shakes out a small laugh, a flicker of disbelief crossing his face, but at what, Jack doesn’t know. 

“Dude,” Kent says. “I’m not really gonna make you stand in line for hours to get into a nightclub. What the fuck. Were you actually just gonna go along with that?” 

Jack shrugs, a little helplessly. Somehow, he doesn’t think _I acted like a dick the last time I saw you so I thought this was worth a shot to help even the score_ is the answer that Kent’s gonna want to hear. “I mean, if you wanted to.” 

Kent exhales sharply, expression caught somewhere between annoyance and something else, something a little softer. “I swear to god, Jack. I don’t know what the fuck goes in that head of yours, sometimes.” He turns towards his friends, waving for a second until he gets their attention. “Hey losers, we’re gonna go find some place a little more chill to catch up. Have fun getting rejected at the door.” 

The girls wave and Seb lets out a wolf whistle that makes a blush crawl up the back of Jack’s neck but otherwise, they seem entirely unphased by Kent’s change in plans. Unsurprised, too. 

Kent tucks his hands into the pockets of his jacket as they turn back around, heading back towards the nearest busy street. “They don’t actually know anything, you know. Seb’s just like that. He thinks everyone’s fucking everyone all of the time.” 

“Some people might call that projection,” Jack says lightly, but a frisson of relief runs through him. 

“Ohhhh, big concepts.” Kent says, shooting a smirk at Jack. “They teach you that kind of thing in class, smarty pants?” 

“Yeah, turns out there are other useful things to know outside of how to get your head bashed into the boards,” Jack deadpans. 

“Well fuck a duck, college boy,” Kent drawls, taking on the cadence of a small town Ontario accent that sounds just like the voice he used to do for this total knucklehead on their old team, “tell me something else useful, just in case this hockey thing don’t work out for me.” 

Jack laughs, loud and sudden, throwing his head back with the force of it, but there’s a reason he doesn’t laugh like this often, and that has everything to do with the honking snort that slips out at the tail of it. But then that gets Kent giggling, high and childlike, like he always used to pretend he didn’t do, and then they’re just two assholes standing on a street corner laughing until their stomachs ache, their breath coming out in puffs in the cool night air. 

It takes a minute for Jack to quiet down, to get his breath back, but when he does, it’s to find a small, satisfied look on Kent’s face, and that’s as familiar as anything too -- Kent always did make a regular hobby out of cracking Jack up, even when laughing was the last thing he wanted to do. 

“Zimms, c’mon. I’m gonna show you something cool,” Kent says, cocking his head in the direction of the Ostbahnhof train station a couple of blocks away.

They mill along with all of the other late-night party goers all the way through the station, knocking into each other playfully until they get to the station and then pausing briefly while Jack digs through his pockets to try and find his paper ticket so he can stamp it. It seems like a ridiculous honor-system way to manage the train fare but it’s still comforting, still feels a little bit like Montreal, to follow a busy, oblivious crowd along the S-Bahn platform towards an empty train car. 

“So, what’s the something cool?” Jack asks, slanting his gaze in Kent’s direction as they fall into step besides each other. 

Kent weaves his way through a group of teens, reaching back to grab hold of Jack’s hand, lacing their fingers together as they come to a small lull in the crowd. Kent quirks a small smirk in Jack’s direction, a surefire sign that Jack’s about to get chirped. “You still like that history shit, right?” 

“Yes,” Jack says, all slow and careful, so Kent knows he’s being a dick on purpose, “I do still like that _history shit_.” 

There’s a low beeping and then the train cars open; Kent steps forward towards the open doors before turning back towards Jack, opening his arms up in a ‘well, here we go’ gesture. “Well, come along on my magic carpet ride, then. Let’s see some history shit.” 

Jack rolls his eyes, but follows Kent into the train car anyways. “What happened to ‘I want a drink and a dance’?” 

“Well, I had a drink already.” Kent leans casually sideways into one of the bright yellow grab rails, crossing one foot in front of the other, like one of those models in Maman’s magazines. 

“But not a dance,” Jack points out, as he sinks down into the gum-stained blue seat in front of Kent so that for once, Kent is standing over him. “I recall you saying something about a dance.” 

Kent steps into the space between Jack’s knees and Jack widens his stance, knocking his legs open to accommodate him, Kent’s leg a warm weight against his. There’s a little thrill in this, in skating towards the edge of plausible deniability in public. The train car is full of twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings all dressed with the sort of style that Jack’s used to associating with the New York City subway which is, to say, that it’s completely incomprehensible to him. When Jack’s gaze rests just to the left of Kent’s arm, he sees two guys, a little younger than both of them, sharing a single seat while they grope each other with the reckless, carefree abandon that can only come from the knowledge that every touch is brand new. 

Compared to all that, Jack and Kent are practically invisible. 

Jack shifts back, flicking his gaze back up at Kent, who is staring down at him with a focused heat that Jack hasn’t seen since before the draft. “I don’t know,” Kent says, a little too flippantly, as if Jack can’t spot the truth of what he’s trying to say with every inch of his body language. “I think we can save our dancing for after.” 

Jack reaches out, tucking one finger through one of the belt loops on Kent’s stupidly tight jeans and tugging forwards, creating an anchor that holds them together. Jack feels light, almost weightless, like all that matter is this inexorable pull between the two of them. He didn’t know it was possible to still feel like this without all of the rest, without the pills and the booze and the terror. Without the narrow tunnel collapsing in on him. 

Instead, there’s just Kent. Kent, with his dumb jokes and his crooked smile, acting like anything is possible, if only Jack can bring himself to believe it. 

“Yeah,” Jack says softly. “After sounds good.”

.

Why now?

On the plane over, that’s the question that Jack asks himself over and over again. He spent over ten hours oscillating between knee-jiggling anxiety and a deep, bone-sure calm that he was exactly where he needed to be. 

He tugs at the drawstring of his sweatshirt, tries to work out the logic to it. He likes history -- likes that periods of time can be portioned out into neat categories that help explain why things are the way they are. 

The first part of his life, the yawning chasm of uncertainty and joy and painfully mounting expectations that built up the bundle of terror that still lives inside his chest, that’s just his childhood. That’s before the Q, before Kent. And then there’s the Q and there’s Kent, and then there’s Samwell. Samwell, the place that he showed up to as little more than a pile of nerves and a couple thousand therapy sessions wrapped into a single person, anxiety and hope covered up by a crimson-and-white sweater. Samwell was after-Kent. Or it was supposed to be, anyways. 

All he wanted was to play hockey and get through the next four years. It was just going to be a blip on the road, a couple of extra years to sort himself out, to let everyone know that his sobriety was going to stick. 

But Jack’s already broken so many of the rules that he set for himself at Samwell. He wasn’t supposed to make friends, either, and then he met Shitty. He’s finding that, as much as he can’t fucking stand to admit it, his sobriety isn’t a fixed object. Instead, it’s a moving target that he has to constantly work to grab a hold of. 

None of it is neat. None of it is meted out, ready to be organized, the way he wishes it could be.

And Kent can’t be neatly separated from his life like a chapter heading in a textbook. Here, there was a battle. Here, there were casualties. Here, there were two boys, and they were in love. 

Jack’s spent a lot of his life trying to pretend like his heart is second-rate, and that he doesn’t have to listen to it if he doesn’t want to. Sure, maybe there was part of him, deep, deep down, that liked to daydream about what would happen after his career was over. That imagined retiring at 39 with a handful of Cups and a long sought-after peace of mind, and finally being able to show up at Kent’s front door, and say hey, remember that time we got married. 

But the rest of him always knew that a 39-year old Kent would’ve had enough. Would’ve found another guy. A better guy, a better husband, than Jack could ever be. 

Jack never thought about the space in between those two points. Never thought about the messy middle of things, and how hard it would be for him to stay set apart. 

He’s not on this plane because of what happened with Camilla and he’s not on this plane because his teammates can’t stop asking about the Lockout, but he’s on this plane for both of these reasons because all they did was remind him of what he's been missing. 

That’s all it took, in the end.

.

It’s not until they’re well over halfway to Charlottenburg on the western side of Berlin that Kent realizes that they got on the S-Bahn going in the wrong direction because somehow, the only city in the world that Kent can navigate is New York.

Jack probably should’ve seen this coming, considering the week that they spent getting lost in Toronto because he kept giving the map to Kent, but it doesn’t really matter. Jack’s not in any kind of a rush; this is what he’s here for, after all. 

So, they hop off the train at Tiergarten, hop back onto the same S-Bahn line going in the opposite direction, and by the time they reach the Treptower Park stop, the sky is starting to shift from pitch black to a soft, warm navy. 

“You know, I hear there’s plenty of ‘history shit’ in Berlin,” Jack says, right before Kent pulls him down yet another flight of subway stairs and out into the night. “There’s probably something else we could’ve seen.” 

“Shut up, Zimms,” Kent huffs, “you’re gonna love this.” 

“A rose garden in the dark?” Jack chirps. “Kenny, you shouldn’t have.” 

“You’re gonna regret being a dick in like five minutes, Jack.” Just like earlier, back in Kent’s bedroom, his smile is barely a flash of white in the dark, offset by the dim lighting scattered throughout the rose garden that they’re currently winding their way through. 

“I feel like I’m about to get whacked,” Jack mutters, as they wander out of the rose garden and cross a street to walk through a dark, looming structure that leads into a dusky forest-lined path. 

“That’s what you get for not signing a prenup.” Kent’s voice is light, with a teasing edge, but it still puts a knot in Jack’s stomach. 

They haven’t talked about it, the last few times they’ve seen each other. There was too wide a chasm between them and anyways, Jack didn’t want to hear it, didn't want the reminder that it wasn’t that simple, that he couldn't just tell himself that it was all bad, before. It ached in his chest, like a slow-healing bruise, every time he let himself think about the in-between moments, when he was actually happy. 

Around them, the navy sky starts to soften into a burnt orange, the dark thicket of trees overhead lightening with every step. They started a lot of days like this, back in Rimouski -- just the two of them, slipping into the arena earlier than everyone else, crusty-eyed but determined. The hush that falls over the world right before sunrise will probably always belong to Kent, for Jack. 

A prickle gathers in the corner of his eye, but Jack determinedly blinks it away, grateful for the dark shadows cast by the trees. Jack clears his throat, tries to shake off the sudden heaviness that’s washed over him. “I’m pretty sure that you’re worth more than me these days, eh?”

Kent puffs out a laugh, condensation gathering in the air in front of him, but then they’re rounding a corner into a wide open space, made up entirely of large slabs of stone and tall, looming statues. Just like the rose garden, there are lights littered strategically throughout the space, reflecting off the statues and casting the whole space in an eerie glow. 

“Wow,” Jack breathes. He shuffles through his mental catalogue of military history, searching for the right era, the right battle. He cranes his neck backwards to stare up at one of the statues, cool light shining off the bronze hammer and sickle pressed into stone. “Alright, Kenny, you win.” 

Kent rocks back on his heels. “Dude, right? It’s like the Soviet Union threw up on this place.” 

That startles a laugh out of Jack; he turns to make a face at Kent, but he can’t hold onto it, not with how Kent is grinning up at him, eyes crinkling into a fully-blown smile. “You’re a real poet, Parse.” 

Kent points with his free hand across the large clearing that makes up the memorial to another statue that looms large on the other side. “There’s a big dude over there holding a child, brandishing a giant fuck-off sword while standing on top of a broken swastika. I rest my case.” 

Jack rolls his eyes, but he has to concede the point. Besides, with Kent’s palm pressed into his, acting as a reassuring focal point of warmth, there’s not a lot that Jack feels like arguing about right this second. 

The place is almost entirely empty -- there’s a young looking couple exploring on the other side, close to the giant statue that Kent pointed out, and then an older man having a smoke while he leans against one of the smaller statues in the middle. 

It shouldn’t feel as private as it does, but Jack can’t help it: it’s the hour just before dawn. It belongs to them. 

“I slept with someone else,” Jack says quickly, like ripping off a band-aid. 

He feels Kent stiffen up and Jack drops his hand, like a reflex, but he regrets it instantly, already missing the steadiness of touch. 

Kent turns his chin upwards, towards the sky, letting out a low groan. His eyes are screwed tight and he looks more annoyed than anything else. “What the fuck, Jack. _Now’s_ the time when you want to talk about shit? If I knew a World War II memorial was all it took to get you to fucking talk to me, I would’ve done this years ago.”

“You weren’t in Berlin years ago,” Jack says, in a weak attempt at a joke. “Her name is Camilla. It was just once. It’s not...I’m not going to do it again.” 

Kent shakes his head, face still tilted upwards towards the sky, as he mouths a near-silent ‘what the fuck.’ “Jack, I chose to come here, to play hockey, because it’s one of the gayest fucking cities in the world. Out of all the shit I could be pissed at you for, fucking someone else doesn’t even make the top ten.” 

“Oh, uh,” Jack says, suddenly fumblings. “So...you’ve, uh….?” 

“Sucked a few dicks since I’ve been here?” Kent fills in, with a little too much glee, like he knows it’s going to make Jack flinch, which it does. “What do you think I meant, when I said I needed a break? News flash, Zimmermann, being in the closet in the NHL fucking blows.” 

_But it’s still being in the NHL,_ Jack can’t help but think, the swoop in his gut that comes from thinking of his own failure never far from the surface. Kent glances at him sideways with a slight raise of his eyebrows, like he already knows what Jack is about to say. 

Jack blows out a breath, switching tack. “I told my parents. About, uh, you know. How we got married. Maman, she has this old friend Julie from her modeling days, she became a lawyer and I asked her to, uh…” 

Jack trails off, unsure of how to proceed. It’s crystal clear inside his head but when he goes to talk about it, to say what he wants to say, everything gets tied up in the back of his throat. 

“So that’s what this is about,” Kent says, suddenly sounding defeated. He shoulders slump a little, like all of the fight’s gone out of him. “Sure, fine, whatever, Zimms. I’ll sign your fucking divorce papers. You could’ve just sent them in the mail, you know.” 

“No, that’s not -- “ Jack protests, a sudden panic rising in his chest. “I mean, unless...do you want to?” 

“Okay, let’s try this again. Jack, what are you trying to say here?” Kent ducks his head down, shifting his gaze pointedly downwards and away from Jack. He seems smaller, suddenly, and Jack can’t help but feel that same old tug at his center, the desire to reach out and touch, to let his hands say what his mouth has never been able to. 

Jack swallows hard. “Julie drew those papers up years ago. Uh, right after I got out of rehab, I think. I’ve...I’ve never signed them. I don’t know. I guess I’ve never wanted to.” 

Kent rubs at the corner of his eyebrow, letting out a sigh. “You guess? Zimms, what the fuck does that mean? Getting married was _your_ idea.” 

Jack forces down a sudden flare of anger; Kent knows him, he _knows_ that Jack is bad at this. Not for the first time, Jack wishes that Kent could see straight through him and just get _it_ , wishes that everything in their relationship could work like the no-look one-timer. 

“Yeah, well, I was pretty blitzed when I said it,” Jack snaps. 

Kent straightens, his head shooting up so that they're facing each other dead-on; Jack can see the way his lips thin out, the way his jaw tightens in anger and Jack thinks, for a second, that Kent’s about to hit him. Then just as quickly, a careful blankness shutters over Kent’s anger and he smiles, all pleasantry and no charm. “Gee, Zimmermann, isn’t that what every gal likes to hear? No wonder you’ve only managed to wheel once in the past three years.” 

It would be so easy, a little too easy, to take the bait, to snarl back the way Kent so clearly wants him to. After all, isn’t that what Jack’s been trying to do for the past few years? Sever the bond between them, make a clean break so that he can pretend everything that happened in the Q happened to someone else, a different person, a different version of Jack who died in that ambulance. 

Jack closes his eyes, pushes out an exhale. “I didn’t...I didn’t know what was real, after. I was just….I was so fucking angry, at myself, at the entire fucking world. It was all this...this big pile of shit and I was at the bottom of it, and I couldn’t figure out if any part of it was good or real. I still….sometimes, I still can’t.” Jack reaches out, cupping Kent’s jaw with one hand, a small thrill shooting up his spine at the way Kent leans into it, almost unconsciously. “But Kenny, you were real. And I’m not, well. I’m not ready to give up on us just yet.” 

For a beat, Kent doesn’t say anything and the moment stretches out, slow and quiet, and then Kent’s pressing forward, grasping hold of the collar of Jack’s parka with shaking hands. Kent rolls up onto the balls of his feet, his eyes flashing that unbearably soft blue color that Jack recognizes from early mornings and after-practice makeouts, and presses a soft, barely there kiss to Jack’s lips. “Okay,” Kent says softly, pulling back just enough to let the words settle between them, letting out a shaky breath. 

There’s more that could be said, sure, but Jack’s sick of talking, so he chases that instinct, slotting their mouths together in another, deeper kiss that draws a low, soft moan out of the back of Kent’s throat. Kent’s fingers find purchase in the hair at the nape of Jack’s neck, tugging hard enough to elicit a groan that Jack should probably be more embarrassed by, considering where they are. 

The last time they kissed in public, they were at the courthouse. It feels right, that this should happen here, like this. 

Jack breaks away, leaning forward to knock their foreheads together. “So, about that dance.” 

Kent leers, hamming it up a little because he’s never been any good at showing vulnerability, and it just makes Jack somehow, impossibly, even fonder. “Yeah, alright, husband o’ mine. I know you’ve been waiting all night to get on this dick.” 

“What a romantic,” Jack says dryly. “How’d I get so lucky?” 

“No idea,” Kent says easily, “but your bangin’ ass certainly helps.” 

Jack opens his mouth to chirp back, but Kent stops him by putting a hand over his lips. “Nope, no take-backs. We’re about to end a three-year marital dry spell, let me have this.” 

Jack licks the palm of Kent’s hand, just because he can, before shaking out a laugh at the deeply unimpressed glare that Kent sends his way. 

“Dude, your saliva is not going to gross me out, I just had your tongue in my mouth,” Kent says, half-rolling his eyes. “Hold up, babe, I want to take a photo of this place first.” 

Kent digs out his iPhone from the back pocket of his jeans, swiping it open to pull up the phone’s camera. “My agent is all the way up my ass about maintaining my social media presence while I’m over here but I keep fucking forgetting.” He waves a hand at Jack. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re out of the shot.” 

Jack frowns softly, trying to pull out the thought that’s suddenly niggling at the corner of his subconscious until it hits him, the reminder that there wasn't anyone there to take any photos the day they got married. “Actually, uh…” Jack starts, a little too carefully, “it’d be nice, actually. To have a picture of us here.” 

Kent’s eyebrows shoot up. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Jack agrees with a small, self-conscious shrug. 

“Cool, well...you’re taller, so you take the photo,” Kent says, pressing his phone into Jack’s hands. There’s a small blush crawling up the back of Kent’s neck and Jack smirks a little to see it. 

It’s a shitty angle, trying to get in the two of them, the memorial in the background, and the warm, burnt orange sunrise that’s blooming behind them, but Jack manages it. It’s a little blurry, the resolution a little out of focus. It’s not as good as a polaroid or a real camera; he still only gets half of his own face, and Kent’s cowlick is falling into his eyes, but it works. 

Kent smiles down at the phone a little stupidly when he gets it back but Jack resists the urge to chirp him for it, waiting patiently for Kent to pocket the phone and re-settle the scarf around his neck. 

“C’mon, Zimms,” Kent says, reaching out to grab hold of Jack’s hand again, lacing their fingers together once more. “Let’s go have that dance.”

.

Muscle memory is a constant. It never really goes away.

So, Kent’s legs wrapped around his waist as Jack carries them both from the kitchen into the bedroom of Kent’s apartment, falling heavily onto the mattress in a tangle of limbs -- that’s easy, even with the extra muscle weight that Kent’s built up over the past three years. 

Jack spends a full, hilarious minute watching Kent try to wriggle out of his skinny jeans before he remembers that it’s in his own interest to help Kent out, so Jack places a steady hand just below Kent’s navel, watching carefully as Kent sucks in a sharp breath. 

“Need a little help there?” Jack chirps, but Kent just drops his head backwards to the mattress with a huff, flipping Jack off as he goes. 

Jack takes that as tacit agreement, so he works to carefully peel Kent’s jeans down and off, brushing his mouth against every inch of pale skin that gets revealed as he goes. He goes slower, takes longer than he has to, until the jeans are all the way off and tossed to the side. 

“Zimms,” Kent says, letting out a high-pitched whine, “Zimms, you’re fucking killing me over here.” 

“Good,” Jack murmurs into the inside of Kent’s thigh, “I’m trying to inherit all your money.” 

Kent chokes out a laugh, before grabbing hold of the thin cotton of Jack’s t-shirt and hauling Jack upwards until Jack’s sprawled half on top of him, their chins knocking together awkwardly. 

“Why is your chin so fucking sharp,” Jack complains, possibly for the millionth time, but it doesn’t matter, actually, because then they’re kissing again, and it’s a little sloppy but still so fucking good, the way it always is, because it’s Kent. Jack lets his thigh fall between Kent’s legs and they start to rock together at a pace that’s so slight it becomes almost agonizing, the way they’re letting the ache build and build. Kent lets out a needy, breathless _Jack_ with every slow drag of skin against cotton that goes straight to Jack’s dick. 

It’s not going to be easy, Jack realizes, as Kent threads their fingers together with one hand, grabbing hold of the headboard with the other. Kent looks up at him, face flushed red and pupils blown wide, with an expression that’s cracked open and vulnerable in a way that terrifies Jack, a little. It gives him the weight of a responsibility that he’s never been sure he should be trusted with but God, does he want it anyways. 

They’re still going to fight; they’re probably always going to be one of those couples that fights. They’re not going to see each other half as much as they want to and there’s still the question of the NHL, always looming on the horizon. 

But it’ll be worth it. It’s him and Kent; how could it not be?

.

Jack’s waiting for his plane to board when he gets a text from Shitty that says, _dude you’re in berlin???? Way to bury the lede on your turkey day plans!!!_ along with a link for Jack to click on.

When the link opens on his phone, it loads to what must be Kent’s Instagram page. There’s the photo that Jack took, the two of them grinning toothily up at the camera in the dim, early morning light, followed by a short caption that reads, “Alright, I guess this history shit is pretty cool.” 

Jack ducks his head as he smiles, for all that there’s no one on the plane to notice or care the way he’s staring at his phone like a moron. It’s not a good photo at all, really, but he’s still glad that they took it. 

“Yeah it was a last minute trip,” Jack thumbs out, pressing send on the message to Shitty. His dad follows Kent on Instagram, Jack’s pretty sure, and that’s a whole other conversation that he’ll have to have once he lands back in Boston. It’ll be fine, though; his parents always loved Kent. He’s never gotten the sense that they were mad about the wedding so much as they were mad about how much Jack chose not to tell them. 

But for now, Jack’s got two flights ahead of him and the only thing he wants to think about is the way that Kent looked with the clear, Berlin sun shining down on him, casting a bright glow to his blonde hair while they stood out on the street, waiting for Jack’s cab to Berlin Tegel. Right before they kissed goodbye, in broad daylight, just because they could. 

Jack opens up the text chain that he’d started up while in the cab over, smoothing one finger lightly over the screen. 

**To: Kenny**  
_Je t'aime. I’ll see you at Christmas._

**From: Kenny**  
_damn right you will. have a good flight, babe._

Jack turns off his phone, tucking it away safely into the front pocket of his backpack, before settling back in his seat. He tugs up the plastic shutter over the small, airplane window, gazing out over the cluttered tarmac. 

He likes it here. It’ll be nice to come back, him and Kent, when they have more time. 

Right now, it’s enough just to know that one day, they could.

**Author's Note:**

> They're at the Soviet War Memorial in Treptower Park - there is, in fact, so much history shit in Berlin but I took a friend who was a Russian Studies major there once and he said, pretty much verbatim, exactly what Kent did. I've never been there at 4 AM; I honestly have no idea if it's lit up at all. Shhh, it's fanfic. It's fine. 
> 
> stay safe out there, everyone! <3


End file.
